What She Doesn't Know (34 page)

By the time the locksmith had done his thing, she was famished. Christopher’s clout did get them a table in the packed restaurant, and they shared a quiet dinner before returning to the office. She started working on her costume while he plunged into his search on the Internet.

She had pieced together a black tank top and yoga pants and fashioned a belt so it looked like a body suit. Then she designed some simple adornments to dress it up. She was so immersed in her project she was surprised to discover two hours had passed. Christopher was asleep in the chair, his feet propped up on the desk. He looked uncomfortable with his head turned to one side. At that moment, he opened first one eye, then the other.

“What?” he asked in a voice that matched the dreaminess in his eyes and the dishevelment of his hair.

She couldn’t help smiling. “Nothing.” She walked to the window. “Did I wake you?”

“No, I just sensed your observation.”

She gave him a curious look at that. Sensed her. She forced herself to turn away from him and looked outside. Despite the late hour and chill, several people sat at tables in the softly lit courtyard. “I’d love to have a courtyard like this. Plants that are green all year long, a wrought iron table to enjoy my morning coffee. Or a late-night drink.”
 

He got out of the chair and stretched. “New Orleans has already infected you, hasn’t it?”

“Maybe a little. What about you?”

He walked up beside her and looked out at the courtyard. “I’ve come to realize you never really leave New Orleans once you’ve lived here.” He turned and met her gaze. “It’s like the woman who once snagged your heart; she never lets go.”

“You’re going to stay here, aren’t you?”

He looked at her with refute on his face. That’s why it surprised her when he answered, “Yeah. I’m going to move my business here and oversee the hotel’s management. That and the house are all I have left of my heritage.” He lifted an eyebrow and sent her heart fluttering. “Think I’m crazy?”

She laid aside the pieces of teal tulle. “Do you care what I think?”

“I asked.”

“Yeah, I think you’re crazy. But that’s not my professional opinion.”

He gave a half-laugh and moved away from the window. “That’s right. You do crazy for a living.”

“Not crazy, just … troubled. I think it’s the right thing to do—right for you.” When she turned back to him, though, no trace of that smile was visible.
 

“I tried to ferret out Sira’s real Internet account ID, but she knows what she’s doing. She has it blocked under layers of phony addresses and dead ends, just like the website. And I searched for the address of every person who’s been banished from Xanadu. Not a one still has an Internet account. I’m going to do some snooping and find out where they are.”

A knock on the door startled both of them. He opened the door just enough to see out. She could barely see a man with a tray. He was peering into the room, but Christopher blocked his view of Rita.

“Tammy saw the light beneath your door,” he said. “Thought you might like some coffee.”

“Thanks.” Christopher took the large tray, then started to look in his pocket for a tip.

“No tip, man. Have a good one.”

Christopher shut the door and set the tray on the desk. “Coffee?”

“No, I’m ready to turn in.”

She settled onto the cot and watched him fit back into the chair. She thought about asking if he wanted to share the cot, but he’d already closed his eyes…and closed her out.

Typical Christopher.

Now he knew where they were staying. He’d wanted to put something in the coffee he’d delivered, but he wasn’t sure he could have gone back in and retrieved the evidence without being seen. Removing evidence was critical; Sira had taught him that.

He wondered if Christopher and Rita had noticed the black roses in the lobby. Sira had been so damned close to getting that interloper out of the way. If only she’d had a few more minutes, Rita would have flown right off that deck. The woman
was
blessed, that much was for sure. But every blessing had its expiration date. Every silver lining had its cloud.

Unless he could get them apart for a while, there wasn’t much of a chance of eliminating them before Fat Tuesday. Which meant they were going to show up at Gathering.

He smiled. Fine, let them come to the party. Let them play their little game. When they were through, Sira would be the winner. And they would be dead.

Lundi Gras day dawned sunny and cool. Closed up in Brian’s office, Christopher and Rita worked on their respective projects during the morning. The only interruptions were lunch and two calls; one from a client and one from the medical examiner’s office, which he put on speaker phone. They found high potassium levels in Brian’s blood, but the man explained how that could occur naturally.

“Any signs of foul play?” Christopher asked.

“I can run a tox screen. That’ll take a few days, though.”

“See if you can get it through faster.”

Faster probably wouldn’t be fast enough. She shivered. Tomorrow.
 

She called and left another message for Connard. “Why isn’t he calling us back?”

“Because he probably has a ‘real’ case to pursue. A bona-fide murder with clues and everything.”

She wrinkled her nose at him but knew he was right. Darn him. “I’m going to the break room and get a soda.”

He didn’t say a thing, just walked to the door and opened it for her. The break room was a mess, indicative of harried employees and a few stolen moments of peace and quiet. He stood patiently by the door while she chose her selection and popped the top. Cold Coke prickled down her throat as she looked at the notices and pictures on the bulletin board.
 

Curled pictures of what was obviously their Christmas party were pinned in the upper corner. Brian was handing out silver-wrapped gifts to the employees in one. In another, several people danced in the courtyard where the party was held. She caught herself smiling at the gaiety, moments of happiness that so easily slipped through one’s fingers. And Brian, laughing at something, his secrets held deep within. She could see the shadow of those secrets in his eyes, just as Tammy had said. The party was a necessary task. He wanted to be elsewhere.

Her gaze shifted to someone standing behind Brian, and she felt a catch in her throat. Like when she’d seen Christopher who looked like Brian, this man in the background looked like someone she knew, too. He was turning away from the camera, though he hadn’t turned fast enough. She could see enough of him to know exactly who he was. She pulled the picture down and studied it.
 

“What’s that?” he asked, walking closer.

She showed it to him. “He works here.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, that’s the guy who brought us coffee last night.”

“This is the man who foisted his assistance on me when I was going to meet you at O’Brien’s. And maybe I’m imagining it, but he could be Henri, too. And the janitor. This is the male half of the team.”

He took the picture. “Let’s find Tammy.”

“That’s Edward Sharp,” Tammy said a few minutes later. “Why?”

“I need his employee file.”

“You’re the boss. He doesn’t work here anymore, though. I fired, fired, fired his ass the other day.”

“The disappearing employee you mentioned,” Rita said, putting it together.

“What I don’t need as we head into Mardi Gras.” Tammy led them into an office and headed to the files. “He wasn’t here when I needed him, but I caught him hanging around when he wasn’t on the schedule. Even after I fired him.”

“Last night,” Christopher said.

Tammy nodded. “He was always skulking around. I escorted him off the property and alerted the security staff to keep an eye out for him.”

His face paled. “You didn’t send us coffee last night, did you?”

“No.” She pulled out a file. “Here it is. I caught him in here once, too. Said he wanted to see his file.”

“To take it,” Rita said. “Could he have put something in our coffee?”

“Maybe. Damn, I threw out the cups, dumped the coffee down the drain.” He took the file from Tammy, who asked, “What’s going on? What do you mean, ‘put something in your coffee’?”

“Never mind. Keep a sharp eye out for him. He’s more dangerous than you think. If anyone sees him, have security detain him and find me.”

“Us,” Rita added.

The sun was slanting through the sky as they headed to the car a few minutes later armed with Edward Sharp’s application. Christopher was looking at it as they walked.

“His address is in the Garden District. Wait a minute. If this address is really his, no wonder he and Sira had easy access to the house.”

They were even more surprised when they found the pink house, shadowed by the draping trees on the west side of the property where the driveway was completely in shade.

“Velda’s house,” they both said simultaneously.

“Could that old woman actually be involved in all this?”

He parked the car on a side street. “My guess is she doesn’t live here anymore. Edward and his friend may even be squatting here.”

“What should we do now?” she asked.

“Let’s see if anyone’s home.”

No one answered his quick rap on the warped wood door. Rita peered through a crack in the curtains in the front window but saw nothing in the dim house. When he found the door locked, he walked around to the back, pausing to make sure she was following him. She kept an eye on the windows, looking for movement. Where was Edward now? Where was Sira?
 

When she turned back to Christopher, he was standing by the French door he’d opened. “Be quiet,” he said. “And stay close.”

She followed him into the dim house. It smelled of old wood, faded mothballs, and perfume. There was no furniture, only large pillows on the living room floor. A computer sat on an old nightstand in the kitchen. Speakers were wired from the computer to the living room, where Sira played music each night for their benefit. Teasing them, laughing at her cleverness. Christopher turned the computer on, but it halted at a password prompt. He looked around, probably hoping for a clue. When nothing he tried worked, he turned it off.

Everything was old and sad, even the thick air inside the house. She and Christopher never let down their guard, checking two empty rooms, looking behind the doors. They both jerked at the sound of the heat coming on. It felt like the warm, fetid air of an aging monster breathing down her neck.

The bedroom contained a sagging king-sized bed and a nightstand that matched the one in the kitchen. Two faded pictures depicted the days of burlesque, probably Velda’s. Maybe the music was hers, too, left behind when she either moved or passed on.
 

Nothing in the room itself indicated that anyone lived there permanently. If they were squatting, though, why was the electricity on? There was only one toothbrush in the bathroom, but toiletries for both a man and a woman. The bathroom cabinet was crammed with wigs and the kind of make-up an actor in a play might use. The closet seemed to hold all of the secrets. It was jammed with boxes and clothing. Christopher paused to listen before stepping inside and turning on the overhead bulb. The chain creaked as it swung from the movement.

Men’s clothing hung on the left, crammed into the small space. She pointed to a janitor’s uniform and the sloppy jeans Henri had worn that first day she’d seen him. Leather gloves had been tossed in the far corner. On the right was a full complement of women’s clothing. The black cat suit hung there, legs flaccid. Toward the back an outfit was wrapped in plastic.
 

He indicated that she wait there and stepped out of the closet to make sure no one had returned. She reached up on tiptoe and pulled down a shiny black box. Inside was the mask she’d seen so many times, including in the car that had run her off the road and in Brian’s final moments. She was so struck by it that Christopher’s reappearance startled her. The black feathers could be matched to the one found in the car, she bet. She pulled one free from the bottom row and wrapped it in a piece torn from the plastic. She showed the mask to him before replacing it.

He pulled down a metal box and opened it. Ashes filled much of it. Human remains? He grimaced and replaced it, then pulled down another box filled with ashes. They had better luck with a larger box pushed to the back of the shelf. It contained pictures ripped from magazines, curiously all male bodybuilders. Some had been crumpled into a ball and then smoothed out again.

Beneath the pictures was a yellowed photo album. Pictures of a family, mother and father, two sons and a much younger daughter. Rita could see so much in these pictures, just as she saw Christopher’s distance in his childhood photos. The girl was miserable, though the rest of her family seemed happy enough. She never smiled, was never interacted with or embraced in any of the pictures. In candid shots, she was often looking at one of her older brothers with resentment. Sometimes she was looking at her parents that way, too, especially as she grew older.

Rita studied the two brothers, looking for Edward’s face. It wasn’t there. Both men were stocky and tall with chiseled features like the men in the torn magazine pages. Was the girl Sira? Rita peeled away a picture of the girl making mud pies and looked at the back. The words had been scribbled through with a black marker.

As she started to show Christopher, she saw that he had a birth certificate for Edward Sharp. Rita peeled back a picture of the two brothers and looked at the names on the back. Neither was Edward, which meant the girl was likely Sira. It also meant the two people stalking them weren’t brother and sister. One of the pictures had to have Sira’s real name on the back, hopefully not scratched off.

Before she could look further, the sound of a car pulling into the driveway shot her heart into her throat. They shoved everything back into the box and returned it to the top shelf. A car door slammed shut. They raced down the hallway as keys jingled at the front door.
 

Rita led the way to the French doors at the back of the house, Christopher right behind her. She glanced back long enough to see the front doorknob turn. He closed the door behind them just as the front door opened and pulled Rita around the side of the house. They dashed through the line of trees into the next-door neighbor’s yard and then circled back to the street. They crossed and took the long way back to the car. She saw the black Buick in the driveway, nearly hidden by the trees. The front door of the house was open, and just inside she saw a man.